Yeast starter smells like cider

[jceg316]

I made a yeast starter and today I decided to cold crash it in sterilised jars. When I was pouring from the erlenmeyer flask I noticed a rather strong cidery smell, I was wondering if the yeast is ok to use. Here's what I did:

• I took the dregs of two 330ml past homebrews as they have MJ M29 French Saison Yeast. This beer was ~7.5%
• Put the dregs into a 200ml starter containing 200ml water and 20g of lght DME
• Left this on my stir plate for 2 days
• Added 500ml more wort (500ml water & 50g DME) and left on the stirplate for 4 days or so.

Everything was sterilised. My thoughts are that there was a fair amount of beer thrown in with the dregs so could it be the initial beer going off? If so is the yeast still good to use?

I'm cold crashing the yeast right now so if the beer is stale, or the wort I made has gone stale, I can decant that and only use the yeast. Can I still add it to the 25L batch I have it saved for? Bearing in mind the amount of bad beer or wort in the whole batch will be minimal.

 

[Dutto]

"Smell" just has to be the hardest thing to describe in words but "odd" smells seem to be part of brewing.

For me, if anything to do with brewing doesn't have the distinct smell of vinegar I tend to regard whatever I am smelling as okay and expect it to disappear during the next stage.

So far, the strange smells have gone away by the time I have got round to drinking whatever it was that set me thinking.

I can't see that you have done anything particularly wrong with the way you made the yeast starter but the decision on whether or not to use the starter has to be very much your own.

Personally, I would just split the brew into two FV's and then brew one using the starter and the other using a packet of dried yeast. That way:

• If the starter is in any way "off" you have only lost half of the brew.
• If the starter is "good" then you can compare the two brews and decide whether or not it is worth harvesting the yeast from either of the FVs.

Hope this helps.

 

[jceg316]

I did some research, it seems a cidery smell in a starter isn't uncommon but doesn't mean the yeast is bad. Because a starter is a small amount of beer, there can be a lot of off smells produced because there are no hops or anything for it to hide behind, but the yeast itself is alright. I'm currently cold crashing the jars and will use them as soon as a fermenter becomes available to brew in.

 

[Simonh82]

A green apple smell/flavour is a common off flavour in beer usually associated with young beer that hasn't conditioned. The other factor is that the beer has sat on a stir plate for 6 days (24-48 hours should be plenty for each step), so it will be horribly oxidised. Starters usually taste pretty rank. As Dutto says, if it doesn't smell of vinegar it's probably fine.

On the brulosophy website they did an experiment where they tested a lager made with a 3L starter. In one batch they added the whole starter, in the other they just added the yeast. Despite the large starter volume and clean flavour profile you would expect from a lager, tasters couldn't tell the difference.